Making Sabbath, Brain Vomit

Katherine commented yesterday that I apparently have been doing a lot of thinking recently.

I guess meltdown cycles have become so normal to me. Just keep doing stuff, don't stop and think, then eventually, crash and my mind cannot stop spinning as it starts processing all the stuff that has caused the meltdown. So I start writing. By the time I get to just about recovery, the cycle repeats itself.

Mia and Kya asked me yesterday what my job was. I told them I was a pastor. Mia then asked what I did in my free time. I had to stop and choose my words carefully because Mia was having a hard time dealing with having to grow up. She has as much quiet confidence as one can possibly get in an eleven year old, but the thought of leaving childhood and free time behind is making her dread becoming a teenager.

I couldn't possibly fib about how much fun growing up can be if I didn't believe it myself.
I couldn't tell her I don't have much free time because I don't know how to say no, and I don't know when to stop.

I don't remember how I answered her question, but it definitely made me stop to think.

The reason why I don't have much free time is because I don't choose to make time to be free.
I'd easily make time for just about anything under the sun--except myself.
Oh, and God.

Dang.

But what's my problem? Why can't I stop? What am I trying to prove?
Truth is, I don't know.

Came across these truths in this week's lectionary readings...

"All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it." - Psalm 22:27-31

This.
This should be the very reason for my existence.
This should be why I eat and why I sleep, and why I do what I do.
But is it?

Some time ago, in a discourse on pastoral theology, a dear wise friend put it (somewhat) in these words.

Creation came into existence because of God's overwhelming love. It isn't just a giant act of masturbation, but one that yearns for a response.

His words left a deep impact with me only partially because his use of the M word made the 13-year-old girl in me giggle. But it made me think.

How many times have I tried to use the things I do to try to show that I'm in relationship with my Creator?
How many times have I been guilty of trying to fill the hours of my day with more things to do hoping that it would fill some kind of hole that only Love can fill?
How much easier is it to pretend that actions earn love when the truth is I'm too proud to accept something that I can in no way claim credit for?

The truth is, Love isn't something that exists because God was showing off.
It isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling that everything is going to be ok.
It isn't even a thing, an act or a feeling.

Dr Ross once explained that the reason why God was so upset with the Israelites worshiping idols made out of their jewelry wasn't just simply because they had broken his commandment about idol-worship, or that God was jealous. In those days, jewelry were a symbol of covenant relationship (ie marriage), and to have taken their jewelry and melted them into an idol would be the present-day equivalent to taking one's wedding band off and whoring oneself to another.

It's never been simply about breaking commandments as much as it is about intentionally violating covenant relationship.

This after all, is the Lover that so selflessly passionate that it yearns for a response like a young man or woman so smitten in new love.
This is the Lover that sent a rainbow to Noah and his family saying, remain in covenant relationship with me.
This is the Lover that gave Abraham his new name saying, through my covenant relationship with you, I will bless the nations.
This is the Lover that passionately pursues Israel even after she has whored herself out to others as many times as she did.
This is the Lover that says I will die for you no matter how many times you throw my wedding ring away.

This is the Lover that says,

For my covenant that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If you simply adhere to the law just so you can be an heir, faith is null, and my covenant is void. For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, neither is there violation. (Romans 4:13-15, paraphrased)

I've been in the middle of my fifth/sixth month lull for a while now. MaryAnn says that "5 months is about right for what you are feeling [like crap]." It's supposedly the time when the novelty of everything is starting to wear off. Chad speaks of memories of his fifth/sixth month with such "fondness".

In the midst of life happening, trying to figure out how to not screw up my job, and trying to put an end to my year of transition and change in community/whanau/gemeindschaft, I've tried to ignore my need for some sense of constancy, even if just a thin thread of something. I don't like change very much, and even if I've come to a place of acceptance of its place as a by-product of something I love far greater--the adventure--there are moments of loneliness and a deep desire for a constant. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel alone. It's just a longing for a something or a someone that has stuck around since the awkward TK days, to the time when I fell in and out of love, to the milestones in Anderson, to the times of questioning in Berlin, to the most recent year of transitions.

Something or someone that sticks around just because.

Oh wait.
There is a someone.
And a Someone that does love me.
Someone with a love so passionate that no matter how many times I might screw up or find myself unworthy and try to walk away from the covenant relationship, continues pursuing.

I don't even have to do anything to prove myself worthy.

And so I make my mind stop spinning for a while.
And take a deep breath.
And write.

Not because I have to.
Not even because I need to.

But just... because.

Looking in the Mirror of My Books
Yesterday Seeds of Contemplation arrived and it is very handsome. The best job of printing that has ever been done on any book by me. I can hardly keep my hands off it. Jay Laughlin says the burlap effect we have on the cover is really a material they are using now on the walls of nightclubs. Well, it is the Christian technique: sanctify the saturnalia and lupercalia with Christian liturgy: turn them into Christian feasts.


Every book that comes out under my name is a new problem. To begin with, every one brings with it an immense examination of conscience.


Every book I write is a mirror of my own character and conscience. I always open the final printed job with a faint hope of finding myself agreeable, and I never do.


The Passion and Precious Blood of Christ are too little in this new book -- only hinted at here and there. Therefore the book is cold and cerebral. What is the good of trying to teach people to love God without preaching through Christ's wounds? The reason I do not do so is because I am still selfish. I find myself thinking about what we ought to get for dinner in Lent; about how to distribute signed complimentary copies of the deluxe edition of this book. I should never have gone into such a thing as a boxed special edition. I must be nuts.
- Thomas Merton (March 6, 1949, II.287)

Kaleo

I want to walk in a manner that's worthy
Of the calling You've given to me
I want to walk in a manner that's worthy
Of the Gospel


Steve and I had a theological-nerd hashing out session yesterday.

Let me first disclaim that while his Calvinist and my Wesleyan roots often don't play well together, out of our genuine desire to be friends and co-workers, we've learnt to respect our theological differences. That, and the fact that we're the two young pups in our church family--old enough to not be in youth group anymore, yet young enough to be left at that in-between age that could easily slip between the crack. At the same time, even though his bible school training has been different from my seminary experience, there are enough commonalities for us to stick out as the academic/theological nerds that we try so hard to avoid being.

As we were talking through our different perspectives on biblical inerrancy, I found myself recalling conversations I've had with peers at AUSOT--both the ones that I found delightfully intellectually stimulating, and the ones that I wanted to strangle gracefully walked away from.

Somewhere in the last year or so of leaving seminary, I've forgotten the joy of intellectually stimulating conversations like these. For whatever reason, I've been trying so hard to find a group of people who shared the same approaches to theological understanding as the core group of my seminary friends--the ones that I've agreed with almost 100% of the time. But I forget how much fun it can be the engage in theological discourse with people who may not agree with me 100% of the time. We probably don't end up agreeing anyway, but because they are well-informed and well-thought-out, they still make for great conversational partners.

At one point in the conversation, we found something that we were both struggling with. Because we are the young pups, we often lose sight of our calling to spiritual leadership in the face of challenges. In my case, perhaps it's because of the recent experiences with my struggles in ministry, I've found it difficult to believe that I do still have that call to spiritual leadership.

... I'm young.
... I'm a woman.
... I haven't been around long enough to understand the culture.

While I no longer live in great white America, there are still things that I will come up against simply because of the demographics I fit into. But it doesn't change the fact that somewhere, at some point, God called and I answered.

No, make that, God called, and I fought for a long time and am still fighting now, but I'm trying to answer.

It doesn't look anything like what I imagined it would look like when I first embarked on this journey, but it doesn't change the fact that the calling is still there. But my own fears of inadequacy have kept me hiding in the shadows, afraid that if I venture out and make even the slightest mistake, I would lose any progress I've been trying to make on this new and unexpected path.

In nine days, I would be marking my sixth month in Aotearoa. I still don't have a clue why I'm working with kids, or why anyone would have thought that was a good idea. I still feel like I'm trying to do something right, yet putting the wrong foot into the puddle and making a big mess all at the same time.

While hanging out the wash this morning, for some reason I took the time to read what was on the back of my Kaleo shirt for the first time since I got it a few years ago. And here's what it said:

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." - Hebrews 12:1

I had to laugh. Kaleo is Greek for "I Call".

Somewhere between Constructive Theology 3 and New Testament 1, my definition of sin became redefined to simply mean the intentional breaking of relationships. This is what "I call" is meaning for me.

I'm not called to be the Children's Ministry Coordinator at Westside Christian Fellowship.
I'm not called to do the lessons right every Sunday.
I'm not called to make sure SUPAkidz is fun every week.
I'm not called to perform.

I'm called to be intentional about relationships.
I'm called to reconcile with the things that are broken.

The crazy kids at AUSOT sent me the Thomas Merton book I had been coveting. I've been trying to avoid developing another dead-man crush, but when someone writes like the way he does... Oh, be still my heart.

Lay in bed and realized what I was: I was happy. Said the strange word "happiness" and realized that it was there, not as an "it" or object. It simply was. And I was that. And this morning, coming down, seeing the multitude of stars above the bare branches of the wood, I was suddenly hit, as it were, with the whole package of the meaning of everything: that the immense mercy of God was upon me, that the Lord in infinite kindness had looked down on me and given me this vocation out of love, and that he had always intended this, and how foolish and trivial had been all my fears and desperation. And no matter what anyone else might do or say about it, however they might judge or evaluate it, all is irrelevant in the reality of my vocation to solitude, even though I am not a typical hermit. Quite the contrary, perhaps. It does not matter how I may or may not be classified. In the light of this simple fact of Gods love and the form it has taken in the mystery of my life, classifications are ludicrous, and I have no further need to occupy my mind with them (if I ever did)--at least in this connection.


The only response is to go out from yourself with all that one is, which is nothing, and pour out that nothingness in gratitude that God is who He is. All speech is impertinent; it destroys the simplicity of that nothing before God by making it seem as if it had been "something." (December 9, 1964)
- Thomas Merton





I want to walk in a manner that's worthy
Of the calling You've given to me
I want to walk in a manner that's worthy
Of the Gospel

Imagine

I've started, paused, deleted everything and re-started this post several times now.

It's not that I don't have anything to say.

I've always been open and honest about my internal struggle between being jaded and hopeful.

But I'm afraid that if I write now, my jadedness is going to whip out its trump card and give me a good scare.


There are days when I appreciate being an NF (Myers-Briggs) because its familiarity helps me navigate the waters of life and ministry really easily.
And then there are days when I hate, and am utterly disgusted at being an NF because it comes with baggage.

In the last few weeks, I've felt a passionate hatred and disgust at being an NF that has also just been slapped with a $5000 excess baggage fine.


To be completely honest, I was slightly disappointed after arriving here that Te Atatu Peninsula wasn't closer to the city-center. I love cities because I thrive on culture, creativity, and... depravity.

And then slowly, one at a time, the layers of depravity on the Peninsula got peeled back.

Don't get me wrong. We live in a broken but beautiful community. Except lately, I've seen a lot more brokenness than beauty, and it's making me wonder, God, why? And how long?


Chad started a sermon series last week on re-imagining, in preparation for our campaign for the Hub.

Imagine what it would be like if Kingdom does come here on earth as it is in heaven.

I'm having a really difficult time with this series. Every week for the last, oh, good little while now, something else is happening to one of us in the whanau (Maori for extended family), and suddenly it's no longer praying Kingdom come for someone else somewhere else.

It's right here.
It's close to home.
It's family.

The only reason I haven't given up on hope is because somewhere, there is a God that is bigger than the hopelessness and the depravity. And if I didn't believe that hope still exists somewhere out there, even if it feels really far away at the moment, I don't think I can comfortably make the claim that I believe in a God that is bigger and stronger than my present.

That is a scary place to be.
I've never known life without God, and I'm not sure I'm ready to even entertain that possibility just because in the frailty of my humanity, I've found it difficult to believe.

Just because my small mind cannot comprehend at this moment, it doesn't change the fact that God is.
That God remains.


The more seasoned missionary friends are saying that these are sentiments that are not out of the ordinary for being on my fifth month here.

That this, too, shall pass.

I hope they are right.


And the pain falls like a curtain
On the things I once called certain
And I have to say the words I fear the most
I just don’t know


And the questions without answers
Come and paralyze the dancer
So I stand here on the stage afraid to move
Afraid to fall, oh, but fall I must
On this truth that my life has been formed from the dust


God is God and I am not
I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting
God is God and I am man
So I’ll never understand it all
For only God is God


And the sky begins to thunder
And I’m filled with awe and wonder
‘Til the only burning question that remains
Is who am I


Can I form a single mountain
Take the stars in hand and count them
Can I even take a breath without God giving it to me
He is first and last before all that has been
Beyond all that will pass


Oh, how great are the riches of His wisdom and knowledge
How unsearchable for to Him and through
Him and from Him are all things


So let us worship before the throne
Of the One who is worthy of worship alone
- Steven Curtis Chapman

"It Was Good"

You made the world and saw that it was good
You sent your only son for you are good
What a wonderful maker


Week after week, I enter with a sense of dread
Another heartache
Another broken heart
Another disappointment
Another frustration
Another...

"It was good..."


Everywhere I walk, I see heartache
Another life-changing decision at the crossroads
Another trip to the hospital
Another pedophile
Another war
Another whose innocence was robbed
Another...

"It was good..."


Day in, day out, I feel like another disappointment
Another phone-call I should have made
Another e-mail I should have sent
Another visit I should have paid
Another lesson I should have done a better job teaching
Another thank-you note I should have written
Another hand I should have held
Another...

Another, Another, Another...

"It was good..."


No, it wasn't.
It was messy
It was chaotic
It was unrehearsed
It was painful
It was unpolished
It was ugly
It was...

Hope(less?)


Do You not hear your children crying?
Oh Lord, how long?

And
I knew I wasn't superhuman.
But I thought if I faked it long enough, I would be able to make it.
After all, You called me to this, so You think I have it in me to make it.

"But I didn't call you to be superhuman..."


Oh.

Was that the part of the conversation where I stopped paying attention because another need had arose, another hand needed to be held, another...


Another, Another, Another...

"It was good..."


Today I had another refresher of Constructive Theology I.
You made the world and saw that it was good.
You sent your only son for you are good.


You made it all, and said that it was good.

"The Lord builds up Jerusalem. He binds the outcasts of Israel." - Psalm 147:2


You were here before me.
You cared about your people before me.
Heck, you even cared about social justice before the term "social justice" was coined, and before I was even awakened to the call of your Kingdom reality.


You made the world and saw that it was good.
You sent your only son for you are good.



It was good.

Happy 2012

A quick review of the last day of my 2011, and the year in general:

Woke up wishing I had another appointment with my old chiropractor in the US.
2011 had been a year of more doctor visits than I can remember. Between the chiropractor, the gastric annoyances, the flu-like symptoms that included something like an ear-infection, I think I'm finally hearing my body tell me, you're not doing the best you can to take care of yourself.

That, and realising I'm 25. Still a young pup to most of my friends, but I can't help remembering that when I was younger, I had set goals to have had achieved more by this age... And I'm not quite there yet.

But the crazy thing is, even though those goals that I set way back when I was a wee lass have yet to been achieved, I've had so many more crazy adventures than I could ever dream of.


Stefan asked Kathrin and I at breakfast this morning if we had any reflections on the year. This has been one of those years that feels like a big wave came through and left me no time to catch a breath. The wave was fantastic to ride, but I could have done with a little less adrenaline.

So no, I haven't really had time to reflect. The year has been fantastic in so many ways, but also so disappointing in so many others.


We went in the afternoon to look at a place that could be a possibility for me to rent.
2011 had been a year of so much moving and transition. Between living off the couch in Becca and Jenny's apartment, packing up 7 years of life in Anderson, packing to house- or pet-sit for a friend for a few days, packing to move Amanda out to Colorado and the 10-day adventure in Oregon, having more garage sales than I can remember, selling faithful Cuddy the Hyundai that I had practically lived out of since the day I got her, moving back to my parents' in Singapore for about 5 weeks and trying to relearn what it's like to have a bank account and do other grown-up stuff in Singapore, and then finally moving to Auckland but still waiting for answers with the visa... Suffice to say, I'm ready for a bit more stability in my life now.

Living with Kathrin and Stefan has been a great arrangement, but I'm ready for a space to call my own now after a year of so much moving around.


31 December 2011 ended with a night of games, snacks and (trying to watch) fireworks.
Food and games had always been a part of seminary culture. But 2011 also saw an unfinished game of Ecuador Monopoly that will have to be on hold for a while till the next time I get to hang out with the Robertsons.

And 2011, I got to watch the 4th of July fireworks in St Helen's, National Day fireworks on TV in Singapore, blow some up with friends on Guy Fawkes' day in Te Atatu.


So yes, 2011 has been a crazy year.
I've experienced bigger disappointments and anger.
I've been on a plane more times than any other year that I can remember.
I've said more goodbyes than I've wanted in Colorado, Anderson and Oregon.
I've sunk even deeper roots in Singapore.
I've met heaps of new crazies in Auckland.


Here's to a 2012 with even more crazy emotional roller-coasters ahead, and even more so to a crazy God whose faithfulness leaves me speechless.


Happy 2012, everyone. Love and peace to you and yours.

Advent Series: The Covenant

Even though I didn't grown up in a traditional liturgical church, the years at Park Place, in Seminary, and friendships with the likes of Arthur, Ed, Kelley and Rhonda, and Carma have taught me to appreciate the beauty of celebrating tradition, liturgy and the church calendar.

For the last seven years, this time of the year begins my season of Advent. Sure, I'm waiting for the Christ-child and all the other biblical stuff, but I will be lying if I didn't also confess that my season of Advent included waiting for that time of getting to be in the birth-place home. Sure, the time to get on the plane isn't too, too far away anymore, but at the same time, it's not quite here yet.

Every year, I wait.
Anxious to get out of the ridiculous slush of the Anderson winters.
Restless to be done with academics.
Excited to see family and friends again.

This year, new traditions await.

I sit in Kathrin and Stefan's study that has been my bedroom for the last two months, watching the bamboo sway outside the window.

There is no ridiculous slush or wintry winds I want to get out of.
No academics I want to be done with.

But still, I wait.
Waiting for answers to the visa process.
But more importantly, waiting for faith.

At SupaKids (the Bible club the Beisleys, Steve and I are involved with at Matipo Primary School on Wednesdays), we've been talking about being committed. As we discussed each of the Bible stories with the kids, I was reminded of the motif paper I wrote for Biblical Foundations of Mission, where we were asked to trace the missio Dei (Latin for "mission/work of God") through the Bible. The motif I wrote about was God's covenant to relationships. Beginning from Noah and the rainbow, to Abraham and Canaan, to the prophetic calls to return to the covenantal relationship, to Jesus of Nazareth, to the letters of Paul, the consistent theme I saw was that God was most interested in relationships.

I've been thinking a lot about Isaac.
If Aotearoa was my Isaac, am I willing to leave it at the altar?
And what if God doesn't spare my Isaac?
Does that change my relationship with God?

Back when I started my Seminary journey, the covenant that God made were the words from the good old Charles W. Naylor hymn:

"When I am safe at home,
Or in a foreign land,
When on an icebound shore,
Or on a sunlit strand
...

Nothing shall separate
From His unbounded love
I am the Lord's, I know
For all eternity"


I've been asked on several occasions if my faith wasn't big enough to believe that if God called me to Aotearoa, a way would be provided for me to stay here. The truth is, I don't know how big my faith is. I only know that God's covenant to me was that Aotearoa or not, I still am the Lord's. What I get to do or where I get to be doesn't change that covenant relationship with my God.

So I'm sorry if that means my faith isn't big enough.
I don't know how much time I have with my Isaac.
I just know that as long as I have my Isaac, I'm giving all that I am and have.

That's the covenant with my God.

Editor's Note: This post kicks off the Advent series for this year.